Saturday, January 11, 2014

ISRAEL: "Psychological damage" from not being circumcised - rabbi

by Yair Ettinger
The legal adviser to the rabbinical court submitted Thursday its
ruling on the appeal by a mother who is opposed to having her son
circumcised. “On the altar of the petitioner’s right to freedom of
religion, she is suggesting that she will ignore the irreversible
psychological damage that is liable to be caused to the child due to his
being an exception in the society of the children around him - and that
must not be done!” the ruling stated.

The adviser, attorney Rabbi Shimon Yaakobi, is asking the High Court
of Justice to reject the petition of the mother - who petitioned the
High Court after the rabbinical court ordered her to pay 500 shekels a
day ($143) until she agrees to have her son circumcised - and to cancel
the interim injunction postponing the implementation of the Supreme
Rabbinical Court ruling.

The baby’s parents are in the midst of divorce proceedings, and
disagree on performing the circumcision. The rabbinical court accepted
the husband’s viewpoint and ruled that the baby must be circumcised by a
doctor in a hospital. But three weeks ago the High Court issued an
interim injunction postponing implementation of the ruling.

Yaakobi replied to the petition on behalf of the rabbinical courts,
and is basing his position on a case from 1998 in which the High Court
rejected a petition filed against the health minister by the Ben Shalem
association, which lobbies against circumcision. The High Court rejected
the petition in a brief ruling, but Yaakobi cites at length from the
reply of the state, which says, among other things, that “the point of
view is that the welfare of the child requires performing a
circumcision, both for religious reasons and due to the social
perspective and the social consensus regarding the essence of
circumcision.”

Yaakobi also quotes from another High Court decision several years
earlier, which addressed whether a Jewish woman who had joined a
messianic Christian group could raise her children in that spirit,
contrary to the opinion of her husband, from whom she was getting
divorced. According to Yaakobi, High Court President Meir Shamgar
distinguished between “physical custody,” which would be given to the
mother, and “spiritual custody,” which would remain with the Jewish
father.

“Differences of opinion between parents on matters of their world
view, including their religious world view, do not meant that the
dispute is not justiciable, as the petitioner suggests - neither in
terms of the welfare of the child nor in terms of the child’s rights,”
wrote Yaakobi. “Children have a right not to have their religion changed without their knowledge. Since they are still incapable of forming an opinion, it is the role of the state to protect their right not to have their religion
changed, and to protect them from attempts of this kind. This
above-mentioned role of the state is reinforced when it comes to a
family in crisis, in other words, when the parents are not of the same
opinion. In that case, the children were born and brought up as Jews. In
their family and their natural environment they are surrounded by Jews.
The children did not express any desire to join the mother’s sect.”

So they admit that children have rights. The rabbis seem to think
that children are born with religion but no knowledge or opinions.
Strange.

Yaakobi also supports his reply with a survey cited on the Ynet
website in 2007, according to which 97 percent of Jews in Israel will
circumcise their sons. [So this one can be like the 3% who aren't.]
“The minor child who is the object of this affair was born to a
normal Jewish-Israeli family,” he wrote. “In their natural surroundings
the couple and their children are surrounded by Jews who perform
circumcisions on their sons. In a year or two the minor will attend a
nursery school where he will be surrounded by children who were
circumcised, and it is no secret that toddlers are capable of noticing
anything unusual, and enough said.

“The petitioner, who wants her young toddler to experience a feeling
of superfluous exceptionalism that is liable to lead to feelings of
inferiority and a serious psychological harm, is not doing the right
thing. The petitioner does not have the good of the child at heart. The child has a right
not to be different from his friends who were circumcised. The good of
the child and his right to be circumcised like every Jewish child in
Israel cannot be a sacrifice - in contradiction of the wishes of the
child’s father - on the altar of the petitioner’s right to freedom from
religion.” [No mention of the child's freedom of and from religion.]